Friday, March 22, 2019

In Search of Lost Librarians

Mom and I were at Perkins, but I had a surprise for her--this post wasn't going to be about her or flapjacks!

"Tomorrow," I said, "I'm going to Idaho Springs for Karen's Disqualification Party."

"Are you bringing a gift?"

"Nope."

"You should at least bring something nice. You're not bringing anything at all?"

"I'm bringing myself. The greatest gift of all."

Mom stared, horrified. "That's awful," she said. "At least bring a gift card!"

"Naw."

Giftless, I drove to the party and, clueless, I missed the I-70 exit and then the Idaho Springs exit. After expertly circling my way back on track, I wound up being only thirty minutes late. The party was at a distillery, where the essence of our feelings would be distilled and, uh, sold to Mary Oliver's heirs. At the door, barring the way like a combination of Cerberus and Aeolus, was Jeff.

"Hey Greg. Where's Alison?"

"Er, she cancelled at the last moment."

"Oh!"

Alison had been my excuse to not drive with him--my negation of the negation, in other words--and I was now being called to task as any Hegelian would be. But Jeff obliviously darted to the next topic, wagging a gnarled finger at Karen's simulacrum.

"Hey, look, there's a poster of Karen. I can't believe the Library of Congress did one of her! That's great!"

(Yes, and she was in Roots. And a big reader of Dostoevsky.
 And a breakdancer. How does the poster know her so well?)

"I don't think that's actually..."

Jeff, yammering, wasn't listening to me. He looked like he had wandered out of a pig cave. Whilst I was admittedly not in a dinner jacket and tails myself, at least I had picked my nits. Jeff on the other hand was fulsomely disheveled: white hairs covered his varicose-riddled face, white eyebrow hairs worthy of the Lollipop Guild curled out, yellow tombstone teeth gnashed between his cracked lips, and a booger was folded in his white nose hairs. Ladies?

"Greg!" Karen yelled sotto voce. "Welcome! We have cookies!"

"Of course we do."

"And just put your gifts on the table there. You brought something for me?"

"Sure, sure," I said, pretending the card I had brought from a patron was from me. "Yep. From the heart."

Genevieve, Iris, and Jay were there, struggling to remember their blog names. As I sampled the cookies, Jeff implacably came after me.

"Hey," he said. Big cemetery smile. "I came early. But I have to leave pretty soon."

"Aw."

The distillery owners offered to give a tour, and as everyone dutifully marched along the yellow line that led around the brewery and then back, Jeff talked with Karen's daughter, Narrative. She had been fired from her locksmith job because of the middle-aged white men she worked with, she said to the middle-aged white men.

"Well, I'm going to go," Jeff said.

"Aw."

Jeff placed his hand on Narrative's shoulder and slid it down her arm, making sure creepy was part of his descriptor. Narrative gave me a suppressed-fury look, one I knew well, and I retreated to a Jeff-free corner. As I dipped a petite madeleine in my small-batch whiskey, I had a warm rush of memories... Karen announcing to the staff that she had MS and crazy... Provoking Todd to yelled "You're a TYRANT!" at a meeting... Taping a streamer over the front doors on our first Monday open in years (March 11, 2013) and giving a surly, confused teenager a John Fielder book... Blowing up thousands of squeaky, exploding balloons for Summer Reading... Ice cream socials at the park blowing up yet more balloons... Her turquoise-trimmed cowboy boots... Her big laugh... Singing and dancing and popping popcorn for a very unnecessary showing of Howard the Duck while a homeless lady sat in the front row and cut her toenails... Getting Jonah to tend an ant farm for some reason... Yelling FUCK in the office and flinging her arms while talking about various coworkers... Tumbling on the street on our way to a Summer Reading presentation at a school, scratching up her hand and face but saving her glass bottle of Coke, not spilling a drop... Almost getting run over by a quitting shelver's car... Almost getting the opportunity to fire Reggie but finally deciding not to because he supplied so much vital blog material... Justkidding telling Karen she wasn't the police of her face... Walking around the block with me so we could talk about various coworkers... Punching my arm... Demanding a picture of me for the HR website, explaining that if a tornado wiped out the library they'd need the photo to identify my remains...

"Bleeugh," I said. I looked down at the remains of my whiskey-soaked cookie. "This Proust stuff is overrated."

Finally, it was time to go. Karen gave me a hug at the door and thanked me for the card I brought.

"Yeah," I said.

"So," she said. She looked into my eyes. "Do you know why I didn't invite Todd to this?"

"Because you have a rational fear of beards?"

"He said something so mean to me. Do you know what he said?"

"No."

"He said I was getting a comeuppance for what I did to Dawn and Dan. Can you believe that?! Everything I did with Dan I was doing for him...!"

"Well, I don't think he meant it that way, but..."

We then started talking about Justkidding and other matters, but finally I pulled away. I wasn't sure I wanted to make any more memories. Hell, even Proust stopped at 4000 pages.

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